But I had no such advance notice. No other community members outside the room in which the AGM was held did either.

According to well-established procedures governing public meetings and organizations like Pride Toronto, which profess to be community-based, that kind of sneaky move by some community members to hijack the meeting last night and force the issue of Black Lives Matter onto the table without notice was inappropriate.

The vote to accept all Black Lives Matters conditions is invalid, as a result, in my opinion. However, it does set up another public debate about the future of Pride Toronto that needs to happen.

I do sympathize greatly with those who have faced unjust brutality at the hands of police and why they wish to see no police presence at Toronto Pride.

I even think it might be a reasonable balance of rights to ban official floats by police including police unions in the actual Pride parade.

However, I can't support any ban on individual police officers marching in the parade, including in their police uniforms, should they choose to do so. The point of Pride is personal expression.

I also can't support the proposal to ban the police from setting up booths in Pride community spaces. Such booths provide important opportunities for police to dialogue with the community and recruit LGBT people into their profession.

The vote last night at the AGM does not represent the wider LGBT community. The new Pride Toronto board should consider it when moving forward, but not take marching orders from people who are good at hijacking public meetings for their own ends.

I hope the issue of how to address the demands of Black Lives Matter continues to work its way through Pride's unique dispute resolution process. That is how this and all controversial issues should be resolved.